Leaf potential modifications

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Timf1981

New member
Joined
Dec 25, 2018
Messages
4
I have a 2012 leaf.
24 kwh battery
60% soh, 33 mile summer range. 15 winter.
The car has some damage.
And I am thinking about stripping the hood, doors , hatch, fenders . And selling them. And making some sort of off road vehicle with what remains. Not much ange needed.

? ? ? If I take out half of the cells. Will it still run with current electronics. Yes , the pack will be putting out only half the voltage.

Second option could be to open each cell and remove two of the pouches that are in parallel. So the pack voltage would still be correct. But half the capacity.
The pouches I remove would be made into a separate battery for a nother project.

Or will it be simpler to remove half the cells and purchase new inverter.

Any other ideas welcome.
 
Don't try to disassemble the battery, unless you have done that sort of work before. You need full pack voltage to run the systems, and removing half the capacity will likely reduce the range by more than half.
 
Timf1981 said:
I have a 2012 leaf.
24 kwh battery
60% soh, 33 mile summer range. 15 winter.
The car has some damage.
And I am thinking about stripping the hood, doors , hatch, fenders . And selling them. And making some sort of off road vehicle with what remains. Not much ange needed.

? ? ? If I take out half of the cells. Will it still run with current electronics. Yes , the pack will be putting out only half the voltage.

Second option could be to open each cell and remove two of the pouches that are in parallel. So the pack voltage would still be correct. But half the capacity.
The pouches I remove would be made into a separate battery for a nother project.

Or will it be simpler to remove half the cells and purchase new inverter.

Any other ideas welcome.

The pouches you mention each have 4 cells in a 2S2P config. Why do you want to remove half the pack? and no, it won't run. The BMS processes are voltage controlled. Take out half the pack and you are in turtle mode for life.
 
Timf1981 said:
Or will it be simpler to remove half the cells and purchase new inverter.

Any other ideas welcome.
What you propose is wrong on so many levels that I'm not even sure you realize how dangerous it is.
If you want something for a home project, go on eBay and buy a few (safely packaged) Leaf battery modules.
 
Here is a little more explaining

Ash Nguyen each cell has 4 pouches inside. All pouches are at 3.75 volts.

One cell is hooked -to- and +to+ with another pouch. Doubling the capacity but keeping 3.75 volts.
The same is done with the other two pouches.

The two sets are then hooked in series. Doubling the volts to 7.5 volts. Times the 48 cells equals the 360 pack voltage

So removing 24 cells will leave me 180 volts.

Would the stalk leaf system revolt? Or will the car just have less power.

If I remove the two pouches in parallel. I will still have two pouches hooked in series. So the cell will still show 7.5 volts. But will have half the capacity. This setup might sneak by the leaf system.

Even if power is reduced. It will still have plenty for what I might use it for.

Here is the breakdown of a leaf battery.
This guy has a number of great teardown

https://youtu.be/vYQJatWpBXY
 
The Leaf will NOT run with substantially reduced - much less halved - voltage, because as noted earlier, it uses the pack voltage as one way to determine when to shut the car down. If you keep the voltage the same and halve the capacity, I think that you will find that any marginal cells remaining that would have worked ok as part of a parallel "team" would likely 'sag' in voltage enough to cause the BMS to turtle the car. (This is another trigger for BMS shutdown.)
 
The lithium battery controller (AKA battery management system) continuously monitors all 96 cell-pair voltages. The car shows low battery warning, very low battery warning, and then turtle (power limited mode) as the voltage of the lowest cell-pair nears the minimum allowable voltage. The main contactor then opens and shuts the car down without further warning when the lowest cell-pair voltage reaches the minimum value. If you eliminate the parallel cells, the net internal resistance of the battery will be increased so voltage will sag more under even moderate load and the car will likely shut down prematurely. Buy another battery pack or some used modules for your other projects and leave the LEAF alone as long as you want to use it. Stripping doors, hood, etc. will not reduce weight enough to make a difference in range (range will probably be reduced due to increased aerodynamic drag). The doors and hood on 2011 and 2012 are aluminum so their weight is minimal.
 
I don't see it being tossed around on sand dunes. It would look more like a Blaster than perform like one. More power than the milder VW tunes, though. Less power than the more radical builds.
 
How about an ID 4 dune buggy instead...

Transpo_VWDune_IBA27214.jpg
 
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